Volleyball accounted for six gold medals while the taekwondo squad brought in two more on the final day of this week-long event as Western Visayas hiked its medal haul to 71 gold, 75 silver and 61 bronze medals.
And even if it couldn’t win a single gold on the last day, Western Visayas would still win it since its closest pursuer, Southern Mindanao, finished only with a 61-52-50 (gold-silver-bronze) medal haul.
Central Visayas was third with 47-30-56 while rounding up the top 10 were Southern Tagalog (33-40-30), Ilocos (26-29-20), NCR North (10-0-0), Bicol (7-22-7), NCR South (6-4-1), Central Luzon (3-7-27) and Central Mindanao (1-4-3).
The feat by Western Visayas, represented by schools from Iloilo, Capiz, Antique, Aklan, Bacolod and Negros Occidental cities and provinces, came seven short of the total harvest in the meet’s last edition.
"We really prepared hard for this," said Western Visayas delegation head Fr. Emilio Jaruda Jr., who said they are hosting next year’s Games either in Bacolod or Iloilo.
Western Visayas was strongest at the pool where it harvested 30 gold medals, six of them from wonder girl Kristine Cabasac, a civil engineering sophomore at University of San Agustin in Iloilo, who was the most bemedalled athlete of the event.
Other events it topped were women’s athletics and badminton and sepak takraw. — Cesar Ramirez